How does one identify a bully?

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I'm not talking about physical abuse, I'm talking about emotionally. I am talking about the situation when you see a couple of kids teasing another kid, but you aren't sure whether they are kidding or not. How do you know if the kid is friends with the other kids or not? How can you tell if the kid is genuinely hurt by the other kids' words if he or she has the tendency to shrug things off?

I guess it is not possible to be sure one way or the other since I don't know these people, plus you mentioned way too little for me to be able to form any definite conclusion. But let me just give you a semi-blind guess based on the very little that you mentioned.

If I take what you described, you were referring to the kid in question in singular and you were referring to suspected bullies in plural. This should give you a clue that this is, in fact, bullying. I mean, if it was normal interaction then all three kids would take similar role, so you won't be able to identify ''one'' kid playing different role from the other ''two''. If he does, then he is either someone popular or someone unpopular. Since he doesn't sound popular, the only option left is unpopular; in other words, he is being bullied.

As far as your second question regarding him being hurt vs shrugging things off, being bullied does not equal being hurt. When I was bullied in high school I was rarely if ever hurt; bullies were just inconvenineces for me. On the other hand now as an adult I am hurt in many situations, but none of them can be classified as bullying. The definition of bullying is the intention of the bullies, which has nothing to do with his reaction to it or lack thereof.

However, even if he is not hurt right now, it is quite possible that he might be hurt later on. I mean bullies are creative. If they WANT to hurt him and it doesn't seem like it works, they will try something else. That, plus also he might not fully realize at the moment what is going on due to his lack of social skills; but later when he finally reaizes it he would end up hurting over it. So if he is being bullied, someone needs to stop them, regardless of whether or not he is being hurt.

Nevertheless, as stated earlier, the inforation you gave is way too little to determine whether in fact he is being bullied. So everything I said is just a guess. Perhaps if you tell us more details as to what happens it would help in giving you more definite answer.

I remember my friend getting mad at me in 5th grade when I stand up for her. I see these groups of boys picking on her and she was pushing them away. So I went after them. She didn't like it so she bullied me about it to teach me a lesson she said. Then when it happened again, I ignored it assuming they were just playing but she taught me a lesson again because I didn't stand up for her. I couldn't tell the difference if they were bugging her or playing.

But I don't know how you can tell. I know even NTs have mistook kids playing as them bullying because they saw it and assumed it was bad than playing because they didn't see the whole thing.